Kenja opened the door to his cave and stepped inside. He had only been gone for a few hours, but he had covered a lot of the ground inside the sect.
As he stepped inside, Kenja felt as if he walked into a pool of water. The air in the cave was filled with a high concentration of Qi, and it lit up the room dimly with a calming blue hue.
'This must be the blessing,' guessed Kenja.
He spared no time ascertaining the cause and immediately closed the cave's door. Walking to the middle of the room, he reached into his ring to take out one of the pills he had received earlier.
He swallowed the pill and waited for several breaths. After enough time had passed, he could feel the gaps and tears in his meridians closing ever so slightly.
He drew Sakura from her scabbard, holding her firmly with both hands. He calmed his mind and steadied his breathing.
"Snail," he said out loud with no other words.
Snail understood Kenja's intentions and slid from the ear down to Kenja's chest. Kenja wanted to take in the blessing and advance his cultivation, so naturally Snail and Sakura had to assist him if Kenja wanted any chance of success.
He could feel the burning sensation coming from Snail and Sakura, signaling that they were ready to proceed. Kenja adjusted his mind and closed his eyes.
He breathed in and began circulating Qi into his meridians. The Qi in the room began converging on Kenja like water poured into a funnel. Kenja was covered in a glowing layer of the blessing's Qi as it continuously got absorbed and expelled from his body.
Thirty minutes had passed. An hour. Two hours. Four hours.
Kenja had barely managed two full cycles before the pill's effect diminished and his gaps widened back to normal, increasing the difficulty of keeping the Qi inside his body. He stopped meditating and opened his eyes, letting the unabsorbed Qi disperse into the room once more.
A sigh of frustration came out of his mouth as he considered what to do next. Four hours of meditation with pills, dense Qi and two assistants, and he barely made any progress. The air was still rich with the Qi that he failed to absorb.
Kenja closed his eyes once more. A heavy atmosphere pervaded Kenja as he sunk into silent contemplation.
Snail and Sakura could feel the effort expended by Kenja as he tried to guide Qi through his meridians and acupoints, so they said nothing and left him to his thoughts.
Kenja opened his eyes once more, gleaming with determination. 'I can do more!' he assured himself.
He disrobed and tossed everything on the table, aside from Sakura and his ring. He moved to the pool of water and stepped into it, Snail still clinging to his chest. After adjusting his position, he sat down in the pool with his legs folded, the water level reaching past his navel. He could feel a denser amount of Qi swirling in the water.
He took out the remaining two pills from his ring and swallowed both of them. Kenja held nothing back as he steeled his mind and laid Sakura horizontally on his two knees, increasing his physical contact with her.
The flaws in his meridians shrunk once more, and he felt his two companions reinforcing them further.
He breathed in, drawing the Qi into his body. The act of breathing helped visualize the flow of Qi into his own body as it seeped in through his pores. Snail and Sakura felt hotter than before as they put more effort in reinforcing his meridians.
The Qi in the room quickly gathered on top of Kenja and around the pool as he was cloaked in an even brighter blue glow.
He circulated the Qi through his meridians again and peered into his dantians. In the center of each dantian, he could see a mass of Qi floating in a gas-like state. In the Qi Flourishing stage, he had to amass enough Qi in his dantians to convert it from the gaseous appearance to a solid state so that he can breakthrough to Foundation Establishment and begin sculpting the solidified Qi into his foundation.
30 minutes passed. 1 hour. 2 hours. 4 hours.
He was able to trickle some Qi into his dantians and add it to the fog, but the volume was insufficient to see a visible change. He needed to cultivate a greater amount of Qi if he wanted any hope of coalescing the suspended Qi into a sturdy and concrete material for the next stage.
He hurried his cultivation. Drawing Qi in more quickly. Rushing his meridians. Pressuring his acupoints. Even Sakura and Snail became scalding hot, matching Kenja's efforts because of their frustration with the negligible progress Kenja had made.
Another four hours passed, and a knock from Kenja's door broke their concentration.
"Big sister, we are going to the student orientation at the lecture hall with Big Sister Rin. Would you like to accompany us?" a muffled voice came from the entrance.
Ryu Hanabi wanted to pass the information to her big sister as well as invite her to join them. For her, their bond as sisters exceeded that of her other sisters since it was established before accepting Elder Kazane's offer. (Disciples of the same master often addressed each other as big and little sister/brother instead of senior and junior sister/brother unless they wanted to retain a formal degree of separation out of reverence or respect.)
Kenja was in a somber mood. He had spent another four hours, and the effects of the pills had already diminished, but it didn't yield much better results than the previous eight hours. In fact, the amount of the blessing's Qi in the room had barely decreased.
Essentially, he wasted half a day and got nothing out of it except slight burns on his knees and chest.
Although the orientation sounded interesting to attend, truthfully, Kenja believed it would be a waste of time since he had already audited so many of their classes, many of them more than once.
He wanted time to think. He needed time to think.
Kenja coughed twice to make sure Snail was modulating his voice. "Little sister, I feel unwell, so can you attend in my stead and inform me of the details?"
"Big sister is unwell? Did something happen? I will skip this orientation and stay by your side," she replied anxiously.
Kenja hit himself on his forehead.
It slipped his mind that the bodies of cultivators don't get sick easily. To say he was unwell would trigger red flags of concern everywhere, especially for this little sister who was eager to help him.
'I guess, I still think like a mortal…' Kenja chuckled inwardly.
"I ate a bit too much of that spirit fruit. There is no need to worry. I am feeling better now, but I would like a little bit more time to recuperate. I am counting on you for the orientation," he reassured her.
"Oh...then I will make sure to note down everything for you. Big sister, please rest well," she responded with a tinge of disappointment.
Hanabi turned back and walked to the three girls standing a little ways away. She informed them of her big sister's health.
"Senior Sister Aoi, can we stay and watch over Senior Sister Hirai?" Yoshie pleaded with Rin.
Yoshie felt partially responsible for Kenja's deteriorated health since it was a result stemmed from the consumption of fruit which Kenja had eaten for their sakes.
Rin stared at Yoshie with a look of reluctance. Her master had asked her to take care of them until she had returned, so allowing all of them to skip the orientation could be considered a dereliction of her duties.
Shizuka nudged Yoshie with her elbow and told her, "We can't do that. Remember what Kenja-niisan told us?"
Yoshie understood Shizuka's meaning and a solemn look of acceptance appeared on her face.
Shizuka also cared for her sick sister, but she was more goal-oriented than her younger sister Yoshie. She was determined to get them back in Kenja's good graces by becoming strong cultivators, and skipping the lecture hall's orientation would not be helpful for their objective.
Hanabi chuckled at their exchange and reassured them Kenja was recuperating swiftly and that they could help their recovering sister out most by relaying the details of the orientation.
Meanwhile, Kenja had already gotten out of the pool and put his robes back on before sitting on the bed in rumination.
He was a natural-born problem solver. He had to be. Raising two sisters, scavenging for food, securing shelter—these weren't issues he could ignore. His gathered knowledge with spirit tool repair and business dealings was also an active effort on his part to improve his situation.
He was frustrated with his current situation, but he was used to dealing with a bad hand. He calmed his mind and began working out his next course of action.
Snail took a seat on Sakura's hilt as she sat against the wall of the pool, recuperating her energy. They had spent half a day working with Kenja on his cultivation, so they pitied him after seeing the lack of progress.
"Now, now, disciple. No need to be so depressed over just half a day's cultivation. Let's go fetch that princess and do it over again with her assistance. I even found a smaller bed for you two to use," he encouraged Kenja.
Out of thin air, a giant bed with emerald-green sheets and a golden headboard appeared in the center of the room, causing Kenja's own bed and desks to shake. The bed could allow a dozen people to sleep in it without feeling cramped.
Kenja was stunned, but he furrowed his brows at Snail's advice. He knew that Snail was only trying to cheer him up, but he was actually considering the snail's advice which frightened him.
Double cultivation with another person was an extremely intimate and physical interaction between two cultivators that greatly enhanced their cultivation.
The process was most beneficial between two individuals who discharged complementary amounts of Yin and Yang particles from their bodies. This usually meant a man and woman would often produce the best results since the sexes usually emitted opposing amounts of Yin and Yang as well as achieved the most bodily contact, but same-sex pairs could still benefit, especially if one partner had an unorthodox ratio of Yin and Yang.
Kenja wasn't such an unscrupulous man, and he would never endanger or use his friends and family in such a way for his own greed, but his hesitation stemmed from the desperate situation he found himself in. His inability to cultivate, even with all these benefits, could cause the most gallant of men to falter.
"We're leaving," he announced to Snail and Sakura.
The air in the room was beginning to sicken him. Qi normally had a relaxing and calming effect, but being unable to absorb it while so much of it was present had begun to irritate him. It was similar to standing in front of the best-smelling and tastiest-looking foods but not being allowed to eat any of it.
He motioned for Sakura to come to him and walked to the door before turning around.
"Take the bed back," he commanded Snail.
"Oh, don't worry. I still have the bigger bed with me. You can keep that one," he said with a generous tone.
Kenja chuckled. Although he was in a bad mood, Snail and Sakura had spent half a day with him cultivating, so he decided to accept Snail's token gratefully. He went to the bed and took it inside his storage ring.
"I guess we won't know when we'll need it," said Kenja.
Snail jumped off Kenja's ear and onto his shoulder, staring at him with proud eyes. "Now you're learning, disciple!"